August 30, 2004
updated January 14, 2007
Nixon addressing his cabinet and White House staff
prior to his departure, 08/09/1974.
Nixon's Greatest Trick:
Orchestrating His
Own Pardon
by
Don Fulsom
Thirty years ago, President Gerald Ford stunned the nation
by granting his crooked predecessor, Richard Nixon, a preemptive blanket pardon
for all of his White House crimes. He did so, Ford said, for the good of the
country: "My conscience tells me it is my duty, not merely to proclaim domestic
tranquility but to use every means that I have to insure it."
The pardon got the ex-president off the legal hook on a
host of criminal activities he had ordered, led and/or covered up. The Watergate
crimes alone ranged from burglary to campaign sabotage, espionage, and illegal
fund-raising, and included efforts to exploit, subvert or pervert the Justice
and State Departments, the CIA, the IRS, the FBI and the Secret Service, as well
as a wide variety of other assaults on the U.S. Constitution and on the rules of
democratic fair play.
Nixon's presidency had unraveled quickly in the summer of
1974. In July, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of
impeachment against him — for obstruction of justice, abuse of power and
contempt of Congress. In early August, what became known as the "smoking gun"
tape was released. Recorded only a few days after the Watergate break-in, it
caught the chief executive and his top aide, Bob Haldeman, devising a plan to
block a FBI investigation of the burglary.
After two years of incrementally mounting evidence against
him, this was the piece de resistance, the evidence that backed Nixon into his
final corner. At that point, the President's few remaining congressional
supporters deserted him. In a strained Oval Office meeting, a Republican
delegation from Capitol Hill told Nixon he would surely be impeached by the
House and convicted by the Senate.
On the evening of Aug. 8, Nixon, speaking from the Oval
Office to a spellbound national television audience, announced his decision —
unprecedented in the annals of the presidency — to resign. At noon the next day,
after Nixon had flown off to California in disgrace, Ford took the oath of
office. The Ford proclamation giving "a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses
against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have
committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through
August 9,1974" came one month later.
From exile in San Clemente, Nixon grabbed the pardon with
alacrity. Though its acceptance was tantamount to an admission of guilt, Nixon
nonetheless still refused to confess, saying only: "I was wrong in not acting
more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly
when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political
scandal into a national tragedy."
To accompany the pardon, Ford announced he was giving the
former president ultimate control over all his White House papers and tapes. And
the new President asked Congress to fork over $800,000 to Nixon for transitional
expenses. While outraged lawmakers were powerless to override a presidential
pardon, they immediately blocked the Ford-Nixon tape accord, and slashed Ford's
request for the transition funds to $200,000.
While the pardon and the sweetness of the deal shocked
most Americans, former President Nixon was not the least bit surprised. He had
not only anticipated the move that would free him from possible prosecution; he
had played a major hand in arranging it. From what is now known of the secret
maneuvering that went on behind the walls of the crumbling Nixon White House, it
is perfectly clear that the idea of a pardon originated with Nixon, not
Ford, and was broached to Ford even before Nixon stepped down.
The Watergate investigation picked up an excruciating
intensity for President Nixon during the summer of 1974, and, as more and more
Watergaters were indicted or convicted (in the end, 40 Nixon Administration
officials were either indicted or jailed for Watergate crimes), the mastermind
of the cover-up feared his own prosecution. And for good reason.
Behind the scenes, Watergate grand jury foreman Vladimir
Pregelj had written to Nixon asking for his testimony. Nixon's chief defense
lawyer, James St. Clair, had quickly said no, that Nixon would only answer
written questions or sit down alone with the special prosecutor — offers that
were rejected by the grand jury. (Years later, in 1982, ABC News would reveal
that all 19 Watergate grand jurors had voted in a straw vote to name Nixon a
co-conspirator, but that Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski wouldn't go
along with them. The jurors settled on secretly naming Nixon an "unindicted
co-conspirator.")
There was no telling what the grand jury might do once
Nixon departed the safety of the Oval Office, and there was evidence that Nixon
was aware of precisely what the grand jury was doing, because he was being
clandestinely clued in on its activities. On a Watergate tape not released until
1997, he is overheard saying he regularly received cover-up information and
advice from the Justice Department's top Watergate investigator, Henry Petersen.
Nixon said he heavily relied on this inside intelligence, declaring, ''I didn't
make a move without Henry Petersen from the time of April 15th (1973). I talked
to him all the way through.'' Nixon's revelation came in a June 5, 1973
conversation with his Watergate lawyer, Fred Buzhardt.
On the very day Nixon resigned, a confidential memo to
Leon Jaworski from two of his top prosecutors suggested just how close Nixon
came to being indicted and prosecuted: "In our view there is clear evidence that
Richard Nixon participated in a conspiracy to obstruct justice by concealing the
identity" of those responsible for the scandal. The memo contained five
arguments for, and five against, indicting Nixon. The No. 1 reason for an
indictment was: "The principle of equal justice under the law requires that
every person, no matter what his past position or office, answer to the criminal
justice system for his past offenses." The top reason against indictment seemed
far less compelling: that Nixon's resignation was punishment enough.
Eager to avoid the risk of winding up in a federal
penitentiary (even though he had once self-pityingly told Alexander Haig: "Some
of the best writing is done from prison"), Nixon dispatched Haig to Vice
President Ford's office on Aug. 1st — the eve of the release of "the
smoking gun" tape — to raise the prospect of a pardon with Ford. The President
realized the tape's contents would spark a revolt among congressional
Republicans and doom his chances of survival. Despite repeated assertions that
"I'm not a quitter," he knew a quick exit was in order. Nixon also knew a pardon
would allow him get to keep his fat congressional, vice presidential and
presidential pensions. He would also gain taxpayer money for an office and staff
— and be provided with Secret Service protection — for the rest of his life. To
stay and fight would be to face the certainty of congressional impeachment,
conviction, and expulsion without any golden parachute or perks.
Haig told Ford it looked as though Nixon would soon step
down, and asked whether Ford was ready to assume the presidency. Haig then
raised questions about whether Nixon should pardon himself before resigning,
whether others should be pardoned at the same time, or whether Ford should give
Nixon a pardon if he resigned. Ford later acknowledged Haig specifically
suggested "Nixon could agree to leave in return for an agreement that the new
President, Gerald Ford, would pardon him."
Ford aide Robert Hartmann reported in his 1980 book
Palace Politics that, after discussing the matter with his wife, the vice
president made a post-midnight phone call to Haig, saying: "They should do
whatever they decided to do; it was all right with me." (Ford insists Haig
initiated the call and claims he told the presidential aide: "We can't get
involved in the White House decision-making.")
In his 1999 book
Shadow, star Washington Post
Watergate reporter Bob Woodward revealed that Haig also used the Aug. 1st
meeting to deliver to Ford two sheets of yellow legal paper that had been
prepared by Fred Buzhardt: "The first sheet contained a handwritten summary of a
president's legal authority to pardon. The second sheet was a draft pardon form
that only needed Ford's signature and Nixon's name to make it legal."
In their memoirs, or in interviews with reporters, several
top Nixon aides have since weighed in on the Haig-Ford discussions. Bryce Harlow
found it "inconceivable" Haig was not carrying out a mission for Nixon. Charles
Colson concluded that Haig had "negotiated" with Ford over the pardon. John
Ehrlichman said, "I'd bet that Jerry Ford promised to pardon Richard Nixon, and
that the promise was made before Nixon's resignation." And Alexander Butterfield
suggested that Ford (who, as House GOP leader, had been instrumental in shutting
down the initial House Watergate probe) would gladly do such a favor for Nixon:
"Nixon had Ford totally under his thumb. He was a tool of the Nixon
administration — like a puppy dog. They used him when they had to — wind him up
and he'd go 'Arf, Arf.'"
The true coziness of the Nixon-Ford relationship was not
known until Ford's death in late 2006. It was also not discovered until then
that Ford had made a firm pre-resignation pledge to Nixon to do "anything, under
any circumstances" to aid the beleaguered president.
After Ford's death, the Washington Post's Bob
Woodward disclosed that Nixon and Ford had successfully kept a big secret:
They'd been tight pals – going back to their first days in Congress in the
1940s, right up until Nixon's death in 1994. Ford described himself as Nixon's
"only real friend." And he put the pardon in an entirely new light: "I looked
upon (Nixon) as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And
I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this
relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma." This
is a far cry from the high-minded explanation Ford had publicly given in 1974 –
that the pardon was designed to insure domestic tranquility and to heal the
wounds of Watergate.
A telling Nixon White House tape also became public at the
time of Ford's death. In a May 1, 1973 conversation, Congressman Ford is
overheard consoling a self-pitying, drunk-sounding, Watergate-embattled
President Nixon: "Anytime you want me to do anything, under any circumstances,
you give me a call, Mr. President. We'll stand by you morning, noon and night."
Of course, this was a Ford offer that Nixon could not turn down when the time
came to arrange his own escape from any legal consequences of Watergate.
Hartmann is convinced Haig reported to Nixon on his
pre-resignation talks with Ford, and that "Nixon believed he had a deal." And
investigative reporters Clark Mollenhoff and Seymour Hersh have made convincing
cases that a secret Nixon-Ford pardon agreement was reached before Nixon stepped
down. Hersh even contends that, shortly after the Aug. 9 resignation, an angry
Nixon telephoned the new President with a threat to disclose the deal unless
Ford issued a speedy pardon.
During this same period, according to The Washington
Post, Ford got a memo from Nixon counsel Len Garment saying the
ex-president's mental and physical condition could not withstand the continued
threat of criminal prosecution. The memo implied that, unless he was pardoned,
Nixon might kill himself. (Nixon's psychiatrist later observed that his patient
was too narcissistic to commit suicide.)
A draft pardon statement accompanied Garment's memo for
the new President. Written by Nixon speechwriter Ray Price, it proposed Ford say
that "because, realistically speaking, there is no way that (Nixon) could be
given a fair trial by an unbiased jury … I believe his case can be separated
from those of the other Watergate defendants."
Ironically, the only evidence disputing the fact that
Nixon's pardon was Nixon's idea came in a newspaper headline five years ago,
reading: "Nixon Spurned Pardon at First." Run by the Associated Press, the story
referred to an uncorroborated claim made at an academic forum in Pittsburgh by
Nixon's longtime post-resignation lawyer, Jack Miller. Miller asserted that the
ex-president initially didn't want Ford's pardon: "He felt that if he had done
something wrong, let him be indicted and go to trial." But the lawyer said he
eventually got Nixon to accept clemency by persuading him he could not get a
fair trial.
Nixon must have put on a pretty convincing act for Miller.
But the assertion is one that even Nixon — during his lengthy post-resignation
career as Revisionist-in-Chief — never had the audacity to press. Would one of
America's most calculating and self-protective politicians — while in deep
potential danger with the law — seriously consider turning down a
get-out-of-jail-free card, a card he had cleverly designed and then
sneaked into play from up his own sleeve? Not a chance.
For many who had watched the great "Tricky Dick" resurrect
himself politically so many times in the past, the newspaper headline—coming as
it did, 25 years after the Nixon Pardon and five years after Nixon's death—was a
chilling reminder that if anyone could perfect the art of spinning from
the grave, it would be Richard Nixon.
Don Fulsom covered the Nixon and Ford presidencies for
United Press International. He has written about Nixon and Watergate for Esquire, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Los
Angeles and Regardie's.
